cast them into the fire.' Who have the tragic task of flinging the
withered branches into some mysterious fire? All is left vague with
unexplained awfulness. The solemn fact that the withering of manhood
by separation from Jesus Christ requires, and ends in, the consuming
of the withered, is all that we have here. We have to speak of it
pityingly, with reticence, with terror, with tenderness, with awe
lest it should be our fate.

But O, dear brethren! be on your guard against the tendency of the
thinking of this generation, to paste a bit of blank paper over all
the threatenings of the Bible, and to blot out from its consciousness
the grave issues that it holds forth. One of two things must befall
the branch, either it is in the Vine or it gets into the fire. If we
would avoid the fire let us see to it that we are in the Vine.

III. Thirdly, we have here the union with Christ as the condition of
satisfied desires.

'If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye
will, and it shall be done unto you.' Notice how our Lord varies His
phraseology here, and instead of saying 'I in you,' says 'My words in
you.' He is speaking about prayers, consequently the variation is
natural. In fact, His abiding in us is largely the abiding of His
words in us; or, to speak more accurately, the abiding of His words
in us is largely the means of His abiding in us.

What is meant by Christ's words abiding in us? Something a great deal
more than the mere intellectual acceptance of them. Something very
different from reading a verse of the Gospels of a morning before we
go to our work, and forgetting all about it all the day long;